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FCC's Powell vs. Howard Stern on KGO-AM
Lauren Weinstein writes "Greetings. Tuesday morning on KGO-AM radio in the San Francisco Bay area, host Ronn Owens was interviewing FCC Chairman Michael Powell when Howard Stern called in. The resulting exchange was certainly interesting. The audio clip is available via my blog.
Transcript of the conversation can be found on Jeff Jarvis's Buzzmachine.
(Sorry Jeff)
why doesn't stern organize mass complaint filings
He did.
He did.
then if the fcc takes no action on thousands of letters, he can genuinely talk about hypocricy
He did. That was the clip you were commenting on.
Here you go > http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2004_10_26.htm l#008280
Fact Check Time:
:)
"2 of the 5 in the FCC board that rules for the fines are Democrats" and "in fact, I was nominated by Clinton"
http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/
"The FCC is directed by five Commissioners appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for 5-year terms, except when filling an unexpired term. The President designates one of the Commissioners to serve as Chairperson. Only three Commissioners may be members of the same political party. None of them can have a financial interest in any Commission-related business."
In short, Bush picked all of them (Powell was simply retained; the others were newly appointed - all but Adelstein in 2001, with Adelstein being in 2002), and he *had* to have at least 2 Democrats on there - so naturally, he picked Democrats with a strong interest in opposing regulation of media mergers and with strong opposition to "indecency". Clinton *had* to pick some Republicans, and hence, Powell.
"and was more than qualified"
Michael Powell has the least experience in telecommunications and media of all of the board members.
"When the Senate approved a bill allowing for increased fines to be levied it was voted for 99-1."
The bill was riding on a defense spending bill - voting against that would have been politically suicidal. So, it came down to what the Democrats could pull off in committee. They got the fines lowered from 500,000$ to 275,000$,
The amount fines were raised to (275,000$), and included a rider that rolled back a recent FCC media ruling (something Sununu fought tooth and nail to keep out).
"Stern - I'm an ATTN whore"
Ok, this one is true.
POTUS Witch Hunt tracker: 75 charges filed against 19 witches, 4 witches cooperating and 5 witches have pled guilty.
You obviously do not listen to the show (your previous posts about "accidentally stumbling on it" earlier notwithstanding). He doesn't say "f*ck", in fact, he doesn't say any of the seven dirty words, bleeps out callers who do say it, and generally yells at them until they stop doing it.
He follows all the concrete obscenity rules to the letter. The incidents in question all revolve around situations where he said things that were deemed to be indecent by "community standards", nothing that was clearly delineated as indecent or not.
The incident that caused Clear Channel to pull out was over a guy who was on the show talking about something involving anal sex. Recently, Oprah had a guest on who talked about that subject at length, and it regularly is a topic of conversation on Loveline, hence Stern's claim of a double-standard, where he's fined but neither Oprah nor Loveline are.
Yes, the show does go for shock value. However, it also has intelligent conversations. It's also often quite funny. And he doesn't say "f*ck". When I want just straight intelligent conversation, I listen to NPR instead (which I often do). The cool thing is, I have a choice as to which I like to listen to on any given morning. If I feel like laughing, I'll listen to Stern, otherwise I'll listen to NPR.
In the end, though, you're busy accusing Stern of doing things he doesn't do in order to make your point, however you don't listen to his show. I don't bash Rush Limbaugh's show because I don't listen to it...I don't know what I'm talking about. You might consider doing the same.
No, he did a 180 before the fines. He read Al Franken's book and he really despises this administration. He's typically pro-Republican - Whitman, Guliani, and Pataki all had good things said about them on his show and at least Whitman said she credited Stern with winning in NJ.
He backed Bush on Iraq, thinking they were an imminent threat to the US. Now that he sees they were not nor were they ever a threat, he's done what a lot of people did and started questioning the war. Not long after, he was dumped by Clear Channel stations and not long after that, fined by the FCC.